An online shopping drive isn’t that smooth after all

For many of us, the world is divided into two kinds of people — those who spend a lot of their time in cyberspace and conduct many of their personal transactions on the Net and those who don’t. The first category does its banking, shopping and trading on the Net and looks forward to the day when, not merely airline tickets and holiday destination, but even their grocery can be bought from anywhere.

Some perceive online grocery shopping as a way of extending their physical malls and sales points to a larger audience while others cynically hope to improve valuations and attract private equity by holding out the promise of an extended online-telephone-home delivery model.

The result: daily advertisements offering incredible deals on everything from mangoes to potatoes and shampoo to furniture. Does online shopping for grocery and toiletries really work? Or are marketers merely holding out an impossible dream without the systems, trained manpower and rigorous processes to fulfill customer dreams?

In fact, despite the hype, most Indian retailers have to pay attention to product quality and staff. After the excitement about big discounts, which is certainly a serious attraction in a price-sensitive market like India, the discerning buyer has begun to chafe at quality. For instance, consumer feedback reveals that the quality of vegetables at multi-product malls such as Big Bazaar, Magnet or even Subhiksha is erratic and often atrocious.

Also, products that are cheap are usually of shoddy quality. Once the thrill of bargain hunting and shopping in an air-conditioned, western format mall wears off, the lack of discipline among the staff and their perpetual chattering in the aisles begins to irritate.

But it doesn’t get any better if you shop online either. Listen to Anuj Gupta’s experience with Sangamdirect, a much advertised on-line shopping service started by Hindustan Lever (Hindustan Unilever), shows that even large companies have a long way to go before they get their act right. Interestingly, the Unilever Company has sold its business to Wadhawan Food Retail Pvt Ltd (WFRL) since March 31, 2007. When we forwarded Gupta’s experience to the company, it was the Unilever executives who answered our queries, since the business is still in the handover process.

Here is what Gupta says: “I initially tried grocery shopping online because of the convenience and cost. The alternative was the neighbourhood kirana stores or hypermarkets (like Big Bazaar), which I found costlier and time consuming. My horror story of shopping with Sangam started with their poor interface, since products are not categorised by price and one is forced to navigate by brand name and categories.

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